


Unhinging the Beast

by efnisien



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-10
Updated: 2010-01-10
Packaged: 2017-10-06 02:15:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/48607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/efnisien/pseuds/efnisien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's his salvation, if only he can stop thinking of her as the one who needs saving.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unhinging the Beast

"Howdy, _boss_," Faith said sardonically as she strolled into Angel's office.

Angel, unsmiling, was immediately on his feet. "Faith."

"Nobody ever says hi anymore," Faith said. "Or howdy. Or whatever vampires say who live in offices, hmm? All those social graces. Oh well." She sauntered further in, ostentatiously looking around her at the symmetrically arranged weapons on the walls, the uncurtained windows, the broad expanse of desk with painstakingly aligned folders and stacks of paper on its surface.

"Hi, Faith," Angel said, but his voice was, if not dead, utterly unrevealing.

She walked right up to the window and left her thumbprint on the necro-tempered class. "Awful sunny today," she observed.

"Does Buffy have a message for me?" Angel said. Now a trace of wariness seeped through.

Faith sighed. "You know, with you, it's always about Buffy, Buffy, Buffy. It's enough to make a girl feel unwanted."

"It's not like that," Angel said quietly.

"I see you've lost your sense of humor along with your conscience," Faith retorted. "Wake up, Angel. You're working for the bad guys."

"It's complicated," he started to say.

"Complicated, my ass," she said. "What could they possibly have offered you that was worth selling out your entire crew? Gee, maybe your first-born son?"

There were times when Angel was good at lying. This wasn't one of them. At last he got up. "Who told you that?" he asked, not bothering to hide his tension.

"How well do you sleep at night, Angel?" she said, tapping the window. "Did you think we could go to hell together without repercussions?"

He swore.

"Yeah," she said. "Connor. Mouthy kid, super-strength and super-speed, the works."

"I didn't have a choice," Angel said. "He was going to kill himself."

"I wasn't there for that part," Faith said, "but I remember it all the same. You really think that was the best solution? Selling everyone out?"

"Once upon a time," Angel said, looking at her steadily, "a girl came to a city of the fallen and danced her wild heart out until she asked a man to kill her--do you remember?"

"I remember that one too," Faith said, resolute. "But you managed to solve that one without making a deal with the devil."

Angel's face was taut with--if she hadn't known better she would have said it was a plea for understanding. "Sometimes there aren't any solutions but bad ones, Faith."

"Then you shouldn't have," Faith said. "That's what you taught me: there's always a choice. You never promised me it would be easy. Why should it be any easier for you?" She didn't mean it cruelly, but he stiffened all the same.

"It's too late now," Angel said, gesturing abruptly at the walls around him. "Now they don't just have Connor hostage, they have everyone. Because I screwed up."

At last Faith turned away from the sunlight and went to join him. She pressed one of his hands in hers; he let her. "The world is a messed-up place when it sends me to be the good Slayer," she said musingly.

"I don't know what to do," he said, very softly. "I thought it was bad going in, but it goes more and more wrong the more time goes by."

"You have to admit there's a problem," Faith said, sounding more sure than she felt. "We can do this, big guy. But you have to let me help."

"He'll probably die," Angel said.

"He already made that decision," Faith said.

Angel's mouth twisted. But he didn't argue the point.


End file.
